GENETICS

[Anticheese]

If you try to use them on someone else, a red bar flashes for a moment and nothing happens. Not only would this be great for selling powers/activators, but it also opens up the amazing possibility of a traitor geneticist avidly researching what latent disabilities their targets have, and sticking them with things to make a kill easier.

I'm also entirely fine with miscreant geneticists, or particularly cheeky ones noting down who has the potential to fart all the time, and bringing that out.

Anyway, the last I checked, DNA injectors could be used on other people. Activators should work the same way.

[Mofleaker]

Injectors don't work either. Seems more like a bug than anything.

[sartorius]

It's a bug.

[Silvercloud29]

For the past few days I been looking at people bitch and bicker about genetics. And a complaint I seen by certain people is thats all people ever do. They don't suggest any real tangible ideas. They just whine about how things could be better without putting forth any real suggestions to fix the problem. I am here to change all that.

So I am going to take all my suggestions into one massive department overhaul thread and post them up. (Note: not a department code rewrite.) And this thread will touch on common issues and complaints people have about genetics being completely anti social is one common issue. The other is how the department has been given a super nerf bat over the past few months due to it. Anyway, I digress. Here is a list of ideas to help improve genetics as a whole.

(Major note: Any ideas that involve money or number changes are totally up to the admins. Any numbers I suggest are examples or my own thoughts. Admins have final say of course)

First off. For this overhaul to work we need to give back genetics cloning, and make injectors available from the start. Then we need to switch genetics from where it currently is up to where robotics is. Exposing it out to the station instead of having it hiding away from everyone.
Now that genetics is in its new position, add a little lobby that's connected to the main hall with some doors. Give genetics its own counter to face with customers. Here we will have 2 new machines. The first one is a genetics ran vending machine that genetics fills with DNA injector needles with the price set by the geneticists. The money from the needles sold goes into the budget.
The other machine will be a self DNA serve scanner. It will kind of look like floor scanner with a open frame, a bit like the Long range teleporter. You step into it, press it on, and it scans your DNA structure into the database for a geneticist to experiment on it. (Their PDA DNA scanning function should also work again)
The lobby will also have a morgue chute. The counter would have a credits swipe terminal. Meant for other non-standard transactions. The lobby would also have a QM style glass sliding door that goes from inside genetics to the lobby. Just in case anyone dumps bodies in there for cloning.

(Now before anyone stops reading to start shit posting me, there are more changes to be made in this overhaul. Keep reading on before jumping the gun please, thank you.)

Now that the remodeling suggestions are in lets talk about balance changes and that would benefit the department.

Now above I mentioned to make the injectors available from the start. This is going to be the main way for genetics to make it's funding. That's because their funding on round start should be cut in half or more. (Instead of 20k it's about 7.5k) Materials would also cost more.and injectors should cost a small amount (no cooldown but would cost about 50 - 150 credits per injector)
Now, now. Don't panic yet. The reason why material costs would be higher is so that the geneticists can get bonuses for doing their jobs. As for an example: Scan a new DNA subject, 1 material. Crack and unlock a new good mutation. 5 materials, Unlock a new bad mutation, 1 material. Clone someone, 3 materials.
Not only does this promote them for doing their jobs, they also would want to interact with the crew. Selling what they unlock to gain cash to pay for more materials they need, while also earning materials by doing things expected from them. Interacting with the crew. Cloning the dead, etc.

With these changes and more staff on station starting to get more powers. It would be a good idea to edit the stability costs so people don't go unstable right away and make them shy away from genetics super powers. I am not saying that they should be able to have every power in the game before they start to mutate. I am simply saying tweak the costs so that Pubbs the Engineer won't start falling apart after getting things like SMES human and thermal resistance and already starts to degenerate from it.

Cloning suggestions.

Now I won't say I was the one that thought of some of these. The guy who did can certainly stand up and say they did. Since I forgot who it was. but I love the idea... ANYWAY onto the point.
So cloning has been a thing of genetics for a long time that tends to be neglected in the past. With some the above proposed ideas, this fixes it a bit.
The next problem is, people saying that cloning is overpowered, with some people trying to even suggest to outright remove it! (I Know! I couldn't believe it either then I heard it! it's such a ridiculous thought!) Which came about because of the simple idea of blocking cloning with a paywall.
Now this suggestion is a lot more involved. Instead of a paywall. People should and can be scanned and cloned like normal. Downside is that they get a random bad mutation genetics CANNOT remove from their body. They are stuck with it till they get recloned. Each time you are cloned you get more inherent genetic defects which pile on (Might not be bad to add 2 defects per cycle) And they stack up, but re-randomize per cycle.
Now, to circumvent this issue there would be a computer terminal (Machine?) added called a gene bank. The Gene bank lets you broker and pay for perfect copy templates of a person you wish to clone. Cloning the person using this template instead of a scan of their body will let them clone in perfect condition with no side effects (Like how cloning now works) You also get a materials bonus for doing so! The downside however is the cost... Which would be about 2k - 5k credits per template.

Anyway. This is all my ideas I have for now. I know there was a few other things i wanted to throw in but I cannot remember then at the moment.

Lets work together to fix genetics.

[Silvercloud29]

If some of the sentences look off. Or grammar fucked up... I wrote this half asleep.

[Paineframe]

I've posted my big Genetics idea a million times but no one seems to be interested in it. But sure, since buffing Genetics again instead of all the other departments that need it more and have seen far less recent development seems to be the current forum fad, here we go again:

Make the cloning pod act as a Genetics machine on the person being cloned, allowing the Geneticist to tweak the genes of the person being cloned. Give it some additional bonus (maybe accelerated research or shorter cool downs) to compensate for the time limit on working with it and to incentive Geneticists to take advantage. Boom. Genetics now has a solid incentive to clone people, they have plenty of opportunity to give people powers, and in most rounds they'll have a steady supply of bodies to experiment on. And because people in the pod don't get to opt out unless they suicide or DNR, genetics can feel more comfortable giving out the mischevious/annoying powers they wouldn't normally give a willing participant, while clones "pay" for their cloning by spending a short period as genetics' unwilling guinea pig.

[Marquesas]

Then we need to switch genetics from where it currently is up to where robotics is.

TL;DR because I'm not interested in genetics nor am I involved with the rework but:
No, please don't move genetics away from the hilarity of being blasted in the face by a stray RPG shot in space 2 minutes in.

[APARTHEID]

Then we need to switch genetics from where it currently is up to where robotics is.

TL;DR because I'm not interested in genetics nor am I involved with the rework but:
No, please don't move genetics away from the hilarity of being blasted in the face by a stray RPG shot in space 2 minutes in.

The legend dies with Cogmap 2.

[Frank_Stein]

The activators that were added recently are pretty amazing, and some the problem with injectors not being available and geneticists not having a good reason to interact with people. I think early injectors could be removed.

I think just a window, sliding glass door, and reinforced table should work for public transactions and selling activators. Model it after the mechanics lab.

A more publicly accessible area and public scanner are great options.

[ISaidNo]

Do we really need another fucking thread for this?

[Silvercloud29]

Do we really need another fucking thread for this?

Most of the other posts have been just filled with people ranting about genetics problems, but not actually suggesting ideas or fixes for the department. Or they make a post about looping around the issue without any real suggestions of what to do about it. That's why I made this post.

Most of the people who actually suggested some form of idea got lost in the sea of bitching.

No, please don't move genetics away from the hilarity of being blasted in the face by a stray RPG shot in space 2 minutes in.

You guys made it harder to blow up cloning since it was removed from genetics awhile a go. I did a Nuke ops round recently and I would of needed to use all my rockets to hit the cloner. Instead I busted out a window from the monkey pen, cut my way through the grates, bashed out more windows till I was at the cloner. Then had to blow it up. Time sink.

PLEASE KEEP THIS THREAD TO GENETICS SUGGESTIONS AND SUGGESTION FEEDBACK ONLY!
Most of the problem is that most threads devolve into bickering about why genetics is shit. I'd like to keep this thread on topic

[A_Spoony_Bard]

Given the complaints in the other thread, it seems like the best solution would be to have the unlocking of superpowers somehow tied in with interacting with the crew. How these two should be associated is still up to debate, but, this seems to be at the root of what people complain about.

[Tom Clancy's Gay Ghost]

There are so many areas that could use any sort of attention more than Genetics. The activators are great, and they've bridged the gap between geneticists and the rest of the crew. I'll support more genetics changes the day that I see some doctors actually using Pathology, or mechanics building functioning computer networks.

[Erev]

I still think we should tie pathology and genetics into a single medical research job - sort of like the scientist role has a ton of options.

... the day that I see some doctors actually using Pathology...

Pathology just needs more symptoms (especially beneficial ones), less chance of random pathogen loss, a revisit to symptom stacking (and/or proc rate for symptoms), and a slightly better interface.

I know at least 3 really good pathologists but unless you pull traitor and get a long, uninterrupted round... It usually isn't worth it. Even if you do enough crew is usually dead by then to prevent your pathogen from being a true epidemic.

[atomic1fire]

I still think we should tie pathology and genetics into a single medical research job - sort of like the scientist role has a ton of options.

... the day that I see some doctors actually using Pathology...

Pathology just needs more symptoms (especially beneficial ones), less chance of random pathogen loss, a revisit to symptom stacking (and/or proc rate for symptoms), and a slightly better interface.

I know at least 3 really good pathologists but unless you pull traitor and get a long, uninterrupted round... It usually isn't worth it. Even if you do enough crew is usually dead by then to prevent your pathogen from being a true epidemic.

I'm not a big fan of taking access away from doctors when the geneticist already has access (I'm p sure both roboticists and genetics have access to pathology).

Give QM a Pathology Crate only unlockable by either MD or doctors, and maybe create a means to introduce genetics mutations into other people via a pathogen.

Bacteria infect plants, Viruses infect crewmen, fungus create cool things based on given mutations. Go crazy nuts and maybe even include a secret method to let roboticists create a borging disease. That's my suggestion to tie pathology into robotics and genetics while still letting doctors have fun. This idea was probably borrowed from another dude I can't remember the username of's effort post.